This Beyond Genius Hack Prevents Your Bananas From Going Bad

When you buy a bunch of bananas you immediately enter into a race against the clock. If you don’t consume all the bananas within the week, you’re left with unappetizing browning and mushiness. Although you can find a gazillion tips online about how to keep bananas fresh for longer, there’s one specific hack that has proven itself worthy of trying.

As one would expect, there’s a lot of science going on during the banana browning process — specifically the release of ethylene gas and enzymatic browning. As Instructables tells us, fruits and vegetables release enzymes when picked, peeled, or cut. When introduced to oxygen, these enzymes start the browning process, as does the presence of ethylene gas, which certain fruits like bananas, apples, and tomatoes, release.

But even if you’re fascinated by the science of the ripening process, you probably still get peeved when it starts to happen. Luckily, there’s a super easy way to slow that browning down.

To keep your bananas yellow for longer, wrap the stems as tight as possible in plastic wrap, tin foil, or strips cut from plastic bags. Doing this will lessen the amount of ethylene gas being released from the stem, which ripens and browns the rest of the fruit.

An even more effective way of keeping the brown at bay is to separate each banana and wrap their stems individually. Again, this further decreases the amount of ethylene gas escaping and also makes the bananas easier to grab and go.

Test this hack out for yourself and we guarantee you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And if/when your bananas do finally go brown and mushy, freeze and save them for a banana bread or throw them in a compost pile to cut down on waste.